Hard Reality (Notus Motorcycle Club Book 5)

by Debra Kayn

  She counted the number of motorcycles, and a new wave of nervousness filled her, propelling her to the front door. Looking over her shoulder while she waited for someone to answer the door, she recounted the bikes.

  There were only four Harleys. Rich wasn't at the house.

  The door opened.

  She turned around and found Wayne. "Where is he?"

  He motioned her inside. All the members of Notus occupied the living room. She connected with her sister. Clara gave her raised brows and a small shake of her head. Her sister still hadn't found out any more information.

  "Where is he?" She walked into the room and stood beside Clara, facing the others. "He's supposed to be with you guys."

  "He's over at my parents' house." Thad sat on the arm of the couch.

  She scanned all their faces. The stoic and serious mood worried her. She'd seen them many times after coming off a missing person case. They never celebrated. They reflected while dealing with the emotional impact in different ways.

  "I..." She gathered her calm. "Is he okay?"

  "He's okay." Wayne patted Clara's ass, sat down in the chair in front of them, and rubbed his hands over his face. When he lowered his arms, he said, "He wanted to talk to Mr. and Mrs. B. Thad's dad said he'd call when Thad left the house."

  Rich. Thalia. Twenty-five missing years. Forty-six years of love.

  She held on to the back of the chair. The men weren't telling her the whole story. She wanted to know what happened to make Rich want to talk to Thad's parents and what happened when they were out last night. Selfishly, she wanted to know why one of them hadn't let Rich borrow their phone and why he hadn't called her to let her know he was okay.

  They'd lived with each other for three months. They'd spent every second together. She was sleeping with him. Didn't she have a right to know what was going on with him?

  "Is he drinking?" she asked.

  Glen shook his head. "He was sober when we escorted him to the Bowers' house."

  She'd often seen Mr. B drink beer when everyone got together. He'd have alcohol in his house. Rich stole whiskey from Vavoom's. How could they trust him not to drink while at the Bowers?

  Rich was an alcoholic. He had an addiction, and his sobriety was new to him.

  "Dad's not going to let him drink," said Thad.

  She swallowed, looking at Clara. Her sister grabbed her hand and excused them, taking her into the kitchen.

  The moment she was alone with her sister, Gracie whispered, "What were they thinking letting him out of their sight?"

  "Sis...you can't shelter Rich. He's a grown-ass man who owes them all a reason for his absence." Clara pulled her into the attached dining room, farther away from the living room. "I get how you feel responsible for him, but he can't continue living with you. Wayne and the others never thought it would take this long to find out what was going on with him. Regardless what happened in the garage and what they talked about, he really can't continue living with you. It's not good for you."

  Her head swirled. "It's not like that."

  Clara held Gracie's hands in between them. "The guys found him in jail, and then there was another motorcycle club after him. He brought danger to your house. You have to let Notus deal with him now. You need to put whatever feelings you have for him on the shelf."

  Impossible.

  She could give him space and time with Notus, but to stop loving him until someone else gave her permission was unfair. They might've known Rich longer, but she knew him deeper and more personal now.

  "Can you do that? Can you step away from Rich?" Clara squeezed Gracie's hands.

  He'd almost been shot protecting her during her panic. He'd allowed her to show him her past. He'd accepted her. She'd stepped out of her house with no protection for him. She could do more. For him.

  It would be hard and miserable worrying about him, but she also knew he had to heal. There was something that kept him away from his MC family beyond the loss of Thalia, behind his decision to join a different motorcycle club and his addiction.

  She nodded. "I can."

  Rich needed to get the upper hand on his battles, or he couldn't truly be in a relationship. If he continued down the path he was living, she would need to accept what they had together was only sex. That she'd imagined the unspoken connection between them.

  She didn't want to believe that.

  Clara raised their clutched hands and brought Gracie's gaze up. "I'm worried—"

  "Don't be. I'm—"

  "A survivor. I know." Clara smiled sadly. "You have no idea how much—"

  "I love you, too." Gracie smiled sadly back.

  They'd always had a special bond, being twins. One shared look conveyed a whole conversation without words. When they talked, they could finish each other's sentences. Clara understood the amount of pain she went through, but Gracie protected her from the truth behind that pain. What Roy Jenkins had done to her family ended with her.

  It was a sacrifice she took on willingly because she loved Clara.

  She could sacrifice her time with Rich to allow him to heal because she loved him.

  Chapter 34

  The oak wainscoting and blue flowered wallpaper in Will and Karen Bowers' kitchen brought happy and sad emotions to the surface. Rich cupped his hands around the now cold coffee mug on the table. Walking into Thad and Thalia's old house where their parents still lived was a walk down memory lane.

  The scratch near the refrigerator, covered with years of coverup, still bore the indent from where Chuck tried to push Thad's mini-bike through the kitchen. He couldn't remember why Chuck thought it was a good idea, but Rich had been there, and he remembered Mrs. B's wrath coming down on all of them and the following Saturdays they spent doing chores to pay for the damage.

  Mrs. B dabbed at her nose with a Kleenex. He swallowed, still reeling from the force of Thalia's mom's hug when she opened the door to him.

  He'd wanted to stay away to keep from putting more hurt on them than they'd already suffered through.

  Maybe Thad was right, and he'd caused more pain by staying away.

  "Things are good for you now?" Mr. B. kept one hand on his wife's shoulder as he gave his attention to Rich.

  The elder Bowers had changed. They were no longer parents, but grandparents. A little more frail and slower, but the love between them still influenced those around them.

  "Better than yesterday." He rubbed his thumb on the coffee mug.

  "That's what's important." Mr. B gaze intensified. "We've thought about you every day, boy."

  Boy.

  He leaned back in the wooden chair. "I called over the years."

  It was important for him to tell them that. It was important that they knew he'd thought about them.

  "We know you did," said Mr. B.

  Mrs. B leaned forward. "Why didn't you say something. Just a hello, or let us know you were checking in? I would've loved to have heard your voice. You were like one of our kids, and we worried."

  His whole body seized, and he stood, rounding the table, and embraced Thad and Thalia's mom. The older woman silently cried on his shoulder. Her reaction was the reason why he always hung up without talking.

  If he would've spoken, he would've wanted to know how they were doing and how Wayne, Thad, Chuck, and Glen were doing. He would've come home.

  "I needed to hear your voice," he whispered, afraid to break her with the strength they held onto each other.

  Several minutes later, he kissed Mrs. B's cheek. They shared a shuddering breath as they both collected themselves. He returned to his seat across from them.

  Mr. B cleared his throat. "Have you had a chance to see Thad's baby?"

  "Not really." He drank the cold coffee. "Just in passing."

  Mrs. B smiled tenderly. "Avi is the spitting image of her aunt as a baby, but boy does she have her daddy's charm. We get to babysit her and when she smiles, our whole day changes. I suppose we're partial because we're her grandparents, but tha
t little girl has changed our lives."

  The fact they loved Thad's kid wasn't surprising, and he was glad to see they could look to the future and appreciate the baby's similarities to Thalia. If Thalia would've lived, she would've been the best aunt.

  The best mom.

  He knew that deep in his heart.

  Nurturing, teasing, competitive, and proud, Thalia should've lived and had a full life. He shoved his tongue behind his lip, needing a chew.

  "So, you've retired?" he asked.

  Mr. B chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, about ten years ago."

  "You couldn't tell." Mrs. B smiled at her husband. "He's out in his workshop whenever he can escape the house. Right now, he's working on a swing set for our backyard. He thinks it'll take him a few years to finish and wants to have it ready for Avi."

  He remembered Mr. B's carpentry skills growing up. The bed frames. The tree forts. The bicycle and skateboard ramps. Hell, he even remembered a wooden chest he'd received one Christmas with his initials on the lid that Mr. B had made for him, and all the other guys.

  That was an item that was solely his that he'd left behind when he'd rode out of St. John's. He had no idea where it went or where his mom's shit had gone after her death because he'd missed everything.

  "Where are you staying?" asked Mrs. B.

  He pointed to his thumb over his shoulder. "I've been crashing at Gracie's place."

  "Oh, Gracie's wonderful." Mrs. B looked at her husband with raised eyebrows. "She's a beautiful girl with quite the snappy personality." She looked back at Rich. "She doesn't let any of the boys boss her around, and gives their teasing right back to them. I really admire her strength."

  "Huh." He looked at Mrs. B, wondering if they were talking about the same woman.

  Did they know about Gracie's abduction? How had they handled someone close to them being kidnapped again?

  Mr. B chuckled. "I thought for a while Gracie and Chuck were going to pair off—before Erikka, of course, but I think they figured out they'd drive each other crazy...they bicker back and forth, like brother and sister, really."

  Mrs. B patted Mr. B's hand on top of the table. "They're furiously protective of each other. Chuck's been a good friend to her over the last several years."

  "She's with me," he blurted.

  Both sets of eyes turned to him. He stood and took his coffee mug to the sink and returned to the table, unable to sit still any longer. It'd been a long night, and he needed to go back to Gracie.

  "You're seeing Gracie?" asked Mrs. B.

  Mr. B stood. "Let the boy be, darling."

  "Oh, of course." Mrs. B got up from her chair, too. "Would you like to stay for dinner? It's nothing fancy, but my homemade stroganoff. I think I remember you liking it."

  "Another time." He glanced toward the hallway. "Do you mind if I—?"

  "Go on, son. It's your home, too." Mr. B put his arm around Mrs. B's waist. "Take your time."

  He dipped his chin and walked out of the room. The familiar hallway led to the basement stairs. A path he'd run down more times than he could count.

  Knowing what was coming, he slowed and took each step until he came to the start of the pictures scattered on the basement stairwell. His gaze drawn to the photos he remembered.

  Thalia twirling a baton in the front yard. One of her riding Thad's ten-speed bike, smiling big for the camera. He lowered his gaze, reaching out to the picture he knew would be there. Unhooking the frame from the wall, he brought the photo closer.

  Taken two months before Thalia was kidnapped, they'd sat in the backyard on the picnic table. She, sitting in front of him, looked over her shoulder at him. He gazed into her eyes. His whiskers shadowed his chin, he'd barely been old enough to grow enough hair to call it a beard.

  He remembered that day like it was yesterday because a few hours earlier, they'd had sex for the first time.

  Everyone thought they were sleeping together already because for the whole year they'd spent all their free time together, but Thalia had wanted to wait. That gift to him, the feelings he had, the responsibility he took, had hit him hard. He'd finally figured out that he knew what love was and it was in the beauty that was Thalia. He trailed his thumb over the glass.

  Until Gracie, he'd only had Thalia's love to remember what it felt like to connect with someone else. Now, he understood that what the Notus members gave him was also love, and he'd had it even when he wasn't around.

  "Fuck, I miss you, Thalia. I hope wherever you are, you know how much I loved you," he whispered.

  Sniffing hard, he hung the picture back on the wall. New pictures caught his attention, and he walked two steps down. There were photos of Wayne and Clara, Thad and Lena, Thad's kid, Glen and Ingrid, Chuck, and...

  He removed the last picture.

  Gracie.

  His chest tightened. He'd confessed to the Bowers that Gracie belonged to him, and he meant it. But, he still needed to talk with her, and he wasn't looking forward to telling her why he'd stayed away from Notus and St. John's for twenty-five years.

  In the process of living a separate life than he'd planned, he'd let alcohol take him on one fucked up ride. A ride he'd struggle with every day of his life.

  He put the frame back and looked again. There was something different about Gracie in the picture. She had the same long, blonde hair. The sweet smile on her face. In the picture, she held a paper plate piled with food and seemed focused on someone else not in the picture. He peered closer when it dawned on him what was different.

  At first, he thought maybe it was Clara. But, it was Gracie. Her expressions were softer, more reserved than Clara's facial habits.

  In the photo, the purse that was always at Gracie's side was gone. He inhaled deeply. The picture obviously from the time before her abduction.

  Needing to go to Gracie, he took the stairs two at a time and walked back down the hallway, finding the Bowers in the kitchen where he'd left them.

  "I'm going to head on out," he said.

  Mrs. B wrapped him in a hug, and then patted his beard, and said, "You'll come back?"

  He nodded.

  She leaned in closer. "That beard, though, Richie."

  He kissed her cheek, setting her to giggle. "I'll think about shaving."

  "That's more than the other boys have promised me. Stubborn men." She waved him away. "You make sure you come back. Dinner on Tuesdays. Drop in whenever, and I'll feed you. Bring Gracie, too. There's always enough food."

  Mr. B motioned him to the door. "I'll walk you out."

  Walking out the door, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped at the top of the driveway and looked across the street to Wayne's house. This was his street.

  Every memory he had was born here.

  The trees were taller than he remembered, the concrete a little more broken, houses a different color, and new faces milled around. He looked at his childhood home, still the poorest house on the block. The new owners were apparently no better at keeping up the yard work or improving the home than his mom had been.

  "Are you going to stick around?" Mr. B removed his hand from Rich's shoulder.

  The question had already been asked. "Said I am, and I will."

  "That woman inside the house had her heart broken twice. Once when we lost our daughter, and again when you skipped out of our lives." Mr. B sighed heavily. "I don't want her going through another one."

  He'd sat down and told all the members of Notus Motorcycle Club the whole story of his life. When he'd finished, they had the option to turn their backs or back him. As he should've known, but he hadn't, they voted to bring him back into the family—minus him going on searches.

  He couldn't.

  He wouldn't.

  He no longer trusted himself.

  Gracie would be the only other person who would get his story—if she wanted it, and he knew she would because that was the kind of woman she was.

  He had to believe she'd accept him or he'd be reaching for a drink.

/>   It wasn't going to be easy. It probably never would.

  But, he planned to stay in St. John's.

  "I'm done hurting others," he said quietly. "I have a lot of time to make up for."

  That heavy, strong hand landed on his shoulder again. He soaked in Mr. B's support, and then he got on his Harley and rode out of the driveway.

  He put off crossing the street where his MC brothers waited for him at Wayne's house, and instead headed to Gracie's house. He had a lot to tell her.

  Chapter 35

  Rich rode up to the townhouse by himself. Gracie stepped away from the window and hurried to the door. Her heartbeat matched the fast-paced idle of his motorcycle and continued as he shut off the Harley. Opening the door, she waited on the threshold watching him.

  He wore yesterday's clothes and carried his duffle in one hand and his helmet in the other. The long, neglected hair and overgrown beard—totally him.

  He appeared okay.

  Seeing him with her own eyes should've settled her worry, but she was more concerned about what was going on below the surface. She needed to know why he never came home and what was so secret among the Notus members, revolving around Rich, that they excluded her.

  He stopped in front of her. His intense gaze, clear and sober. A burst of hope filled her and she stepped back, letting him into the house. He hadn't been out drinking.

  He walked inside, dropped his bag, and turned to her. She flipped the locks and watched his gaze go to her side where she normally carried her purse.

  "You have my pistol," said Gracie.

  He tilted his head to the side. "Say again?"

  "Not the one I let you have, but the one I carried in my purse."

  "I left both of them on the bed in the guest room," he said.

  She studied him and because she couldn't settle down until she knew the truth, she hurried up the stairs and into his room. The plastic that usually covered the dresser was laying over most of the bed. She picked the edge up, and her pistols were placed exactly where he claimed. She tossed the plastic to the side.